Comedy/Tourist Week

I have felt absolutely terrible about my lack of blogging since moving to New York! You'd think I'd have an overabundance of things to write about, but I was so busy with my job search that it took me away from feeling like I should blog. But to update you all on my life, I am now employed! Yes, I have secured a position in the PR industry and I just finished my first week there and I am very excited to see what happens! But besides that, last week my bae rolled into New York to hang out with me and attend the Del Close Marathon improv festival, so I played tourist with him for the week, as well as enjoyed some amazing comedy.
I was happy to procure a ticket to a book signing and Q&A session with Abbi Jacobson from Broad City. She was questioned by Susie Essman (who plays Ilana's mother on the show). It was a nice night where she spoke about her coloring book she illustrated, as well as talked about the TV show. Plus, I finally got to go into The Strand book store, which is amazing, so I definitely need to go back.

So like I said, the bae was in town, so he dragged me around the city to eat at places his boss suggested. This gave me a good excuse to be a foodie (rather than my recent sorry trips to McDonalds for whatever is cheapest). I finally made it to the West Village, where we ate pizza at three different places, found a place called Murry's Cheeses that has amazing breakfast burritos, and saw a show at the Comedy Cellar (which featured SNL's Michael Che and Pete Davidson, with a surprise appearance by Louis CK!).

Him and I also walked the Highline during a beautiful pink and purple sunset which blew my mind and made for some awesome photographs.

Over the week, more of our college improv friends arrived into town, so we did more tourist things like headed to the Museum of Natural History (which didn't really interest me, so I blew through there in an hour), walking through Central Park (which has turtles! Did you know there were turtles?) and heading to Chinatown.

Another day took Levi and I to Coney Island, which was pretty alright. I'm not a huge fan of amusement parks, but it was nice to walk around and see what was there as well as see a beach for the first time in awhile. There's also some pretty cool artwork there, which I made Levi take photos of me in front of.

Well, it's been almost a week now and I've had time to recover from the craziness of this past weekend. The 17th annual Del Close Marathon was my first view into the intense world of improv and what it can be like when you get the funniest people in the world together in the same city and have them do whatever they want on stage. I saw some of the best performances of my life this weekend and can only revel in the thought that hopefully someday I will be on that stage too.

Leading up to the big weekend, all I knew was that I wanted to see as much improv as possible and make sure that I see Amy Poehler in person at least once. Well, I saw her twice and that was definitely enough for me, but it really didn't have to be because I saw so many of my favorite performers (Abbi Jacobson, Ilana Glazer, Ben Schwartz, Nick Kroll, Jason Mantzoukas, Zach Woods, Bobby Moynihan, Chris Gethard, Adam Pally, Thomas Middleditch, Nicole Byer, and more) and it was mind-blowing. At one point, Adam Pally fell on me during an improv set where the performers were blindfolded and I hurt my neck, but it didn't matter because it was so funny!

Hanging out at the party space for performers was awesome too. I got to speak to so many of my favorite improvisors and it was inspiring and cool to be able to just be in the same setting as them, just chatting and talking about comedy. Next year's goal is to actually perform at the marathon! I know I can make it happen! P.S. The sketch video I was in right back when I first arrived in New York finally went online, so check it out (it's slightly NSFW, just to warn you).